Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator yield for an additional question? And I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed for 3 minutes with the Senator from South Carolina, if the Senator from Florida will be so gracious.

Mr. LEVIN. I also commend the Senators who are involved in these proposals. These are extremely important proposals. I hope that they would not be nongermane if, indeed, cloture is invoked tomorrow. By the way, I wonder if I could ask the Chair whether or not the pending amendment would be germane, if cloture is invoked?

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LEVIN. I have no objection.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Could we then amend the unanimous consent request to include Senator Sessions immediately following Senator Salazar, then it would go to Senator Dorgan.

Mr. LEVIN. I commend my friend from Virginia for his temperament, his ability to withhold any suggestion of personal comment. He is to be commended. He is literally a role model for that. The Senator from Virginia is correct. He showed great care for the Members of this body yesterday, gave great consideration to the Members, and I commend him for that.

Mr. LEVIN. We will have to wait and see the precise nature of the amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if I could inquire, while we are waiting, I will also withhold an amendment which is ready to go which I don't know if it has been cleared or not on the time and material contract abuses. I will withhold that until Monday. If we have a moment, if we could ask a parliamentary inquiry, how many amendments now have been laid aside and are pending for either vote by rollcall or voice vote or acceptance?

Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if the Senator will yield. For about 1 minute, I will go back to the history, and I will not go through it all. Last year, we spent 7 days on this bill. The 1st filing of cloture was on the 11th day of debate, after considering 42 amendments. The 2nd filing of cloture was on the 15th day of debate. I think it is totally inappropriate to file cloture today. I have no better friend in this body than the Senator from Virginia. I was glad to hear what he basically just said, which is that he is going to take a close look at where we are before this vote takes place. He has always been openminded. I hope he will reconsider this cloture motion. We are going to make progress today, even though there are no votes. It is difficult for Senators. Senator Kennedy is going to be offering a very important amendment in a few moments, but the vote on that is not going to take place until probably after the cloture because we have so many amendments that are stacked up here. He deserves better and, more importantly, the subject matter of the amendment deserves better than to be debated on a Friday and then laid aside and not voted on until many days later. Traditionally, we try to vote on amendments after they are debated--shortly after, not days and days after they are debated. We are going to accommodate the demands of the schedule by trying to offer a lot of amendments today and on Monday in order to see if we can show enough progress here so that the motion for cloture will be vitiated. That is our hope. I hope the Senator from Virginia will do what he always does so magnificently, which is maintain an open mind, keep options open, and see what kind of progress can be made to avoid a divisive vote. It is inappropriate to have a cloture vote this soon after the debate begins. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. I would ask Senator Sessions if he could give us an idea as to about how long he would be so Senator Dorgan could plan his time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we are ready to proceed on a number of amendments, but we are going to withhold those as an accommodation to, I gather, a lot of folks here who want to go out right now. We will then offer the amendment on the Berlin cafe which has not yet been cleared. We will hold that off until Monday. And remarks on RNEP I will withhold until Monday. The national missile defense we also will withhold until Monday, if that is the desire of the chairman.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator from Colorado yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. LEVIN. I have talked to the chairman about this. I ask unanimous consent, with the concurrence of the chairman, after Senator Allard has completed, that the Chair then recognize Senator Salazar, and following Senator Salazar, that then Senator Dorgan be recognized. It is a little bit out of order because we have been going back and forth, but in terms of time, I think it may be a fair apportionment.

Mr. LEVIN. No objection.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, let me thank the Senator from Colorado for his extremely thoughtful and sensitive statement about what this bill is all about. I thank him for his kind remarks.

Mr. LEVIN. We, the defamed people from Michigan, are really from Ohio.

Mr. LEVIN. Approximately 15 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Senator from North Dakota, if it is not already locked in, then the Senator from Colorado be recognized to introduce three amendments which will take a total of--about how long?

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the ``Do the Write Thing Challenge'' is a national writing contest that gives middle school students the opportunity to express themselves about community problems including guns, gangs, drugs, and violence. The students are asked to identify actions they can take to help address such problems. The Do the Write Thing Challenge, or DtWT, was created in 1994 and is sponsored by the National Campaign to Stop Violence. DtWT currently operates in 22 cities and counties, including Detroit, MI. In 2005, more than 32,000 students nationwide participated in DtWT by written submissions and by pledging not to engage in violence. Since its creation, more than 145,000 students have participated in the DtWT Challenge. The national DtWT finalists from each participating jurisdiction recently came to Washington, DC to talk to lawmakers about youth violence and its impact on their lives. In addition, the finalists were honored by the National Campaign to Stop Violence at a national recognition ceremony. Among those honored were Samantha Medina and Michael Henderson of Detroit, MI. Samantha and Michael both addressed the issue of gun violence in their writings. In her poem, Samantha wrote about the constant threat that guns pose to her family and friends. Michael wrote a personal essay about two friends and an uncle who were murdered by criminals using guns. Both students also chose to write about the importance of nonviolent solutions in resolving conflict and how the actions of individuals impact the safety of their entire community. I congratulate Samantha and Michael, and the other DtWT national finalists as well as all of the participants across America for their achievements and efforts to eliminate violence from the areas where they live. I believe Congress can do more to support their efforts. Several pieces of legislation which would increase the number of police officers on our streets, increase resources for school and community violence prevention programs, and make it more difficult for criminals to obtain powerful weapons are currently awaiting further consideration in the Senate. I urge my colleagues to take up and pass these bills to make our families and communities more safe.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I think it is important that in addition to getting the general views of the administration about the importance of this BRAC process proceeding for the reasons they have set forth, the language of this amendment be forwarded to them. I will give an example of why. As I understand it, one of the impacts of the amendment would be that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Army to bring back to the United States about 49,000 personnel and their families because those relocations back to the United States are dependent upon certain steps being taken as proposed in the BRAC process. We are leaving a lot of people in limbo overseas, I believe--that is our conclusion--but I would like to hear from the Defense Department as to the specific ramifications of this kind of delay, in addition to the reasons they have already given for opposing any delay or cancellation of the BRAC process. So I agree with our chairman that they are very clear that they would veto this bill if this kind of amendment passes. But in terms of the argument on the amendment, there are practical problems, in addition to the ones already raised by the Defense Department, that they may want to raise if we get them the language. I hope that over the weekend the chairman will forward the language to the Defense Department.

Mr. LEVIN. I think there is a deep illogic in that. To the extent you would want to delay something so that Congress could have information, which I think would be a mistake for the reasons given, to the extent there is logic in that, the President should have the same information before making his decision as the Congress arguably should have. Again, for reasons given by Senator Warner and myself, I think it would be a mistake to create the state of limbo which would result from the adoption of this amendment. It also has that degree of illogic in it as well. Finally, I ask the chairman, so that we can get the precise position of the administration on this, whether we could reasonably expect that at least by Monday we could have a letter from the administration relating to the specifics of this amendment. I know we have a general position of the administration.

Mr. LEVIN. That means that while the Senator sets forth arguments for why all this information is essential before a congressional decision, the Presidential decision would be made before all of this information is available?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I, too, oppose the amendment for the reasons which were set forth by the chairman. But, in addition, I have some other thoughts about this process. Each one of our States has gone through a tremendous period of anxiety. As it turns out, some of that anxiety was well based because they are on the list. For those States that did better than expected or better than their worst fears, it seems to me this amendment will throw them right back into that state of anxiety because by definition, this makes it more likely because of the uncertainty that is injected. And because of the delay in the final disposition, more States will be thrown right back into the position of being very nervous and anxious as to whether their bases and their facilities might be hit by a base-closing round. In other words, there is no finality. It is a totally uncertain finish, not just 2 years. We don't know when substantially all major combat units from Iraq will be withdrawn. I would be very concerned that in addition to the arguments which the Senator from Virginia made, we have many States that hired consultants, that made major presentations, that now are going to be put back into a state of limbo because they will then say: Well, we are not going to know whether we are basically off the hook for years, potentially many years. So those that breathe a sigh of relief by this list or did better than their worst fears or better than expected are now going to be put in a position where they are going to have to say: This could go on for years. We better keep these consultants on board. We better continue to be nervous about this for some indefinite period of time. There are many uncertainties that are created and a great degree of pain that will be inflicted if we continue this process for some unlimited period. As I understand the Senator's amendment, he would complete the process through the Presidential decision.